A Practical Course in Visual Perception

Artistic Means in Iconography

September 12, 2026 - October 24
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What Is This Course About

We offer a series of 6 lectures and practical, easy-to-implement assignments — designed to fundamentally transform your approach to work. While preserving the ultimate purpose of the icon — to help the viewer gather in prayer and ascend from the image to the Prototype — this course invites you to begin living out the thesis: iconography is theology in colors.

Setting aside for a time the recently invented linear schemes and purely conceptual frameworks, we invite you to approach iconography as visual poetry — created above all for the eye, with no need for verbal interpretation.

Instead of a standardized sequence of predetermined technical operations, we will teach you to make decisions based on your own perception of the image in the present moment — rather than to follow a protocol.
Instead of the familiar drive to produce recognizable and "correct" images, we will show you how to focus on expressiveness, visual richness, and harmony from the very first moments of your work.

What I Will Learn

This course is planned as a series of lecture units. In this first unit you will explore:

The distinction between illusionistic depth and artistic perception of reality — and the advantages of working within the surface plane

How to treat the surface as a work of art from the very beginning — letting yourself be guided by what you see, rather than imposing a predetermined vision

How to create images made for perception, not merely recognition

Building an image from the ground up — the blocking-in approach, and what it changes

The power of restraint — what evocative understatement is, and how it turns your work into visual poetry

How your brushwork determines the final result

Each lecture is accompanied with a detailed summary with links to external resources for further learning.

Details

FOR WHOM

This course is for iconographers and any artist who wants to understand the visual world more deeply — whether you are just beginning or have years of practice behind you. No prior knowledge is required. But even those who feel confident in their visual skills are likely to find new angles here — perspectives that sharpen what you already know and haven't yet seen.

HOW IT ALL WORKS

The course is delivered as a series of 6 weekly live online lectures via Zoom — held at 12 PM New York time (18:00 Europe), each followed by a Q&A. All sessions are recorded and available to watch at any time during and after the course.

PRICE

$137 USD or €120 Euros for:
6 Live Zoom Lectures 30+ minutes each
Recorded version shared on the next day
PDF summary + extra resources for each lecture
Comprehensive answers to individual questions.

DURATION

6 weeks
Zoom Lectures are performed on every Saturday, starting on September 12 and finishing on October 17, 2026. The answers to your questions in the Classroom are given until October 24, 2026.

RESOURCES PROVIDED

Live zoom lectures. Recorded Full HD versions of the lectures available on the next day. Summaries of all lectures with links to extra materials shared through Google Classroom. All the videos remain available to the students for a minimum 1 year after the end of the Course.

TIMING

During the period of the course the lectures will be held online on every Saturday and recorded. To check the availability of the live sessions for your location please check The List of Time Zones below.

LEARNING SUPPORT

Learners are suggested to either participate in live zoom sessions or watch the recorded versions on Youtube. Personal answers from the lector are given during the live sessions right after the lecture or in the Classroom during the whole period of the course until October 24, 2026.

NECESSARY SUPPLIES

Learners are suggested to join the live zoom sessions with any device with a working zoom app, however it is better to use tablets or other devices with larger size screens to see specific details of the slides better.

Slides from the lectures

Slides

Practical Matters

This Course starts with the first Zoom Lecture on Saturday, September 12, 2026. It consists of 6 lectures, performed on every Saturday (see the Calendar of Lectures below).
The students are invited to join the Live zoom sessions or watch the recorded sessions, published on the next day. The aim of this course is to help you see your own work more consciously. The five lectures cover different aspects of the artist's practice. To get the most out of the material, students are invited attend the lecures and to complete practical assignments. The assignments are intentionally simple — yet it is precisely through them that you begin to feel how your own decisions in the process of drawing and painting define the way the work is perceived, and what makes it more expressive. When working on the assignments, aim not for technical perfection — perfection can make an image cold and distant, while imperfection and brushwork with character make it alive and relatable. Aim for clarity of visual thought — for the idea that speaks directly to the eye, without the mind's tendency to overinterpret. Try working with different materials — different pigments, paper of different colors — and pay close attention to the moment when the essential has already been said, and it is time to stop. After the last lecture scheduled on October 17 you will have 6 more days to post your questions and receive personalized answers.

Access to the Google Classroom and the videos is for the course participants only and must not be shared with anyone else in any form.

Please check The List of Time Zones* to see at what time it will be available to you:

20:00 Helsinki time

19:00 Amsterdam, Berlin, Madrid, Paris, Rome time

18:00 London time

01:00 PM New York, Washington DC, Quebeck, Toronto time

12:00 PM Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Winnipeg time

11:00 AM New Mexico, Calgary time

10:00 AM Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver time
* Daylight Savings schedule changes applied

NOTE: If we have at least 5 students from the eastern hemisphere, we will add one more session starting at 18:00 Melbourne (VIC, Australia) time.

What the Lectures Are Like

Every lecture is made of several parts, covering practical and theoretical aspects of the subject. We always start by briefly defining the historical context, and after showing a series of slides with most characteristic images, we analyze their artistic qualities, giving emphasis on artists' purposes and preferences. Taking into account all of the above, we exemplify the theological content of the images (or architecture), connecting it with relative references produced in other media and/or arts of the time. Having done that we analyze how they were produced, sharing practical information with our students.
Every lecture is finished with theoretical and practical conclusions regarding the significance of the phenomena for todays' iconography and its meaning in the context of Christian art in general.

The Introduction.

Calendar of Lectures

1. SURFACE IS OUR ALL

September 12

2. SHAPES (Blocking in)

September 19

3. IMAGE DEPTH

September 26

4. HIGHLIGHTS (Evocative Understatement)

October 3

5. NAMEABLE COLORS

October 10

6. BRUSH WORK (Medium)

October 17

Ready to Enroll?

Online Iconography Course Artistic Means in Iconography. costs $137 USD or €120 Euros.
It is realised as a series of weekly live zoom lectures, starting on Saturday September 12 and ending on Saturday October 24, 2026

Making your registration payment, please provide a valid email address, - it will also be used to send you a personal invitation to Google Classroom and all the further communications.

For payments in Dollars:

For Payments in Euros:

If within 80 days from the purchase date you experience health issues forbidding you to participate in the chosen course, we will fully refund the cost of your order.

Please, let us know if you have any questions.
If you wish to be informed about our future courses and other events, get in touch with us (top-right of this page) or subscribe to our regular Newsletter at the bottom of this page.

About the Instructor

Philip Davydov. Sacred Murals Studio (since September 2001: Saint Petersburg, Russia; since March 2022: Tbilisi, Georgia).

Artistic Means in Iconography. A Practical Course in Visual Perception

Philip Davydov

Iconographer, iconography instructor and web-site administrator.
Second-generation iconographer with M.A. from State Fine Art Academy of Saint Petersburg (faculty of Theory and History of Art).
2001 co-founder of Sacred Murals Studio (St. Petersburg, Russia).
Teaching iconography in the US, Italy, Australia and other countries since 2005.
2006 Member of the Union of Artists of Russia.
2009 - 2022 Professor at Institute of Theology and Sacred Arts (Saint Petersburg).
2021 November - December Head of Iconography School of St Petersburg Seminary.
March 2022 - Present. Freelance iconographer and iconography Teacher.

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Frequently Asked Questions

English is not my first language, can I still enrol to your courses?
English is not our first language either, so we endeavour to speak slowly and articulate clearly. Besides, all video lectures have subtitles in English, which you can easily translate into most languages, clicking the "gear" icon, than clicking "Subtitles" and "Language". If you are unsure, whether you will feel comfortable learning from the recorded videos, try watching the introductory lecture (published above) to make a more informed decision.

Do you teach via ZOOM?
This course is indeed taught via zoom as it is a series of lectures, yet, all the zoom lectures are recorded and can be watched at any time during the course and after the course. This means that students can watch the lectures at their time and pace choosing the comfortable speed.

What if I have questions? Do I get personal answers to them?
We invite our students to share their questions in real time, right after the lectures during the Q&A time and also type them in the Stream, we always tray to answer as soon as we can.